Asheville

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I thought it fitting to honor the holiday with this lovely Celtic cross. This is another grave marker I photographed at Riverside Cemetery in Asheville, North Carolina. Although it was a frigid January, the ivy covering the trees in the background somehow managed to survive.

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Continuing on with photos I took in Asheville’s Riverside Cemetery, this is one of the most fun engravings I’ve seen on a gravestone. Though I usually find older graves more interesting than contemporary ones, I love the bold, graphic design and whimsical character of this winged insect. Originally I thought this was a bee, but it really looks more like a dragonfly. I can’t remember if the epitaph referenced bees or find another photograph of this gravestone, so it’ll remain a mystery, at least until the next time I visit Asheville.

Getting a good shot was challenging due to the close placement of other stones, as you can see on the left side. Sunshine warming up and illuminating that gravestone drew attention away from the insect, so I converted the image to black and white to shift emphasis to the center. I also added a toy camera filter to enhance the fanciful feel and remove distractions. As a comparison, here’s the original image with just a few basic adjustments:

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Today’s image is a bit cheerier. I’ve been trying to get a good shot of birds in cemeteries for a long time. Although I see them from time to time, they’re almost always too flighty for me to get close enough for a decent photo. While I was at Riverside Cemetery, I came across quite a few robins hopping around. These two stuck around long enough for me to photograph them. Finally!

This is also one of those rare cemetery photos that I prefer in color. I added a toy camera effect to it for a little extra fun.

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Continuing on from yesterday, “Desecration #2” shows the second vandalized statue I photographed at Riverside Cemetery in Asheville. This one strikes me as more obscene than the first, I suppose because it’s a little girl. If they were real people, the monk at least might have a fighting chance. (Yeah, I know – monks don’t fight. And I’m anthropomorphizing statues. So what?)

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I’ve decided that it’s high time I started posting more of my photography to my blog, so this week I’m traveling back in time to last January. This week’s photos were all taken in the historic Riverside Cemetery in Asheville, North Carolina.

Every cemetery has a different feel and character to it, and Riverside Cemetery is one of the most beautiful and interesting ones that I’ve visited. One thing that struck me here was the number of statues that seemed to have been vandalized. Now, it’s not uncommon for statues and graves to sustain damage from storms or other natural occurrences. However, I’ve never seen statues with their heads chopped off like this, and there were several beheaded statues throughout the cemetery. As you can see, this statue is also missing a hand.

While I can’t prove this statue fell victim to a vandal, it seems likely enough that I’ve titled this photo “Desecration #1.”